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He held his breath. This was the critical moment. If that Malwa army had the sort of officers trained by such generals as Belisarius, Damodara, or Rao-or Kungas himself-he was in real trouble. They'd organize an immediate counterattack, leading columns of men up the ridge. Kungas was confident that he'd be able to fend off such a counter-attack long enough to make a successful retreat. But he'd suffer heavy casualties, and this whole risky gamble would have been for nothing.
After a few seconds, he let out the breath. Thereafter, he continued to breathe slowly and deeply, but the tension was gone.
The Malwa officers, instead, were reacting as he had gambled they would. Surely, yes; decisively, yes-but also defensively. They were simply trying to squelch the panic and force the men back into their ranks and lines.
Which, they did. Which, of course, simply made them better targets.
"Idiots," hissed the king's second-in-command, standing next to him atop the ridge.
Kungas shook his head. "Not fair, Vima. Simply officers who've spent too much time in much too close proximity to a superhuman monster. Too many years of rigidity, too many years of expecting perfect orders from above."
The next few minutes were just slaughter. Even the very first rounds had struck accurately, most of them. Kushans were hill-fighters and had adopted the new mortars with something approaching religious fervor. Where other men might see in a Cohorn mortar nothing but an ugly assemblage of angular metal, Kushans lavished the same loving care on the things that other warrior nations lavished on their horses and swords.
Finally, Kungas saw what he was expecting. Several horsemen were driving their mounts recklessly back across the river. Couriers, of course, bringing orders from the Great Lady.
"Well, it was nice while it lasted," chuckled Vima harshly. "How long do you want to hold the ridge?"
"We'll hold it as long as we can keep killing ten of them to one of us. After that-which will be once they get too close for mortars-we'll make our retreat. Nothing glamorous, you understand?"
Vima smiled. "Please, Your Majesty. Do I look like a Persian sahrdaran?"
"The battery is secure, Emperor," said Toramana.
"I think your Ye-tais should do the honors, then."
Toramana nodded. "Wise, I think. Rajputs pouring through the gate into Mathura would probably make the soldiers of the battery nervous."
After he was gone, Rana Sanga said sourly: "What has the world come to? That men would prefer to surrender to Ye-tai than Rajputs?"
Damodara just smiled.
Within two hours, Mathura was his-and the great siege guns with it.
Only one battery and two barracks of regular troops put up any resistance, once the garrison saw that Damodara's army had gained entry into the city through treachery.
All the soldiers in those two barracks were massacred.
The Ye-tai contingent that served as a security unit for the recalcitrant battery were also massacred. Toramana led the massacre personally, using nothing but Ye-tai troops.
After they surrendered, the surviving artillerymen were lined up. One out of every ten, chosen at random, was decapitated. Damodara thought that would be enough to ensure the obedience of the rest, and he didn't want to waste experienced gu
He'd need them, at Kausambi. Soon, now.
Valentinian straightened up and rubbed his back. "Enough," he growled. "I've stared at this sketch till I'm half-blind."
"It's a good sketch!" protested Rajiv.
"I didn't say it wasn't. And I don't doubt that you and Tarun measured off every pace personally. I just said I've stared at it enough. By now, I've got it memorized."
"Me, too," grunted Anastasius, also straightening up on his stool.
The huge cataphract turned to the assassin squatting on the stable floor next to him. "You?"
Ajatasutra waved his hand. "What does it matter? I won't be one of the poor fellows sweating and bleeding in this desperate endeavor."
Easily, gracefully, he came to his feet. "I'm just a messenger boy, remember?"
The two Roman soldiers looked at each other. Anastasius seemed reasonably philosophical about the matter. Valentinian didn't.
But Valentinian wasn't inclined to argue the point, any more than Anastasius. They'd miss the assassin's skills-miss them mightily-when the time came. But long hours of discussion and argument had led all of them to the same conclusion:
Nothing would matter, if Sanga wasn't there at the right time. That meant someone had to get word to him, across a north Indian plain that was turning into a giant, sprawling, chaotic, confused battlefield.
A simple courier's job-but one that would require the skills of an assassin.
"You don't have to gloat about it!" snapped Valentinian.
Ajatasutra just smiled.
"You don't have to gloat!" complained Photius.
Tahmina gave him that half-serene, half-pitying look that was the single habit of his wife's that the eleven-year-old emperor of Rome positively hated. Especially because she always did it looking down at him. Even while they were sitting.
"Stop whining," she said. "It's not my fault if you make elephants nervous. They seem to like me. "
Gingerly, Photius leaned out over the edge of the howdah and gazed at the Bharakucchan street passing below.
Very, very far below.
"It's not natural," he insisted.
Tahmina just smiled.
"Tempting, isn't it?" said Maloji.
From their position on the very crest of the Vindhyas, Rao and Maloji gazed out over the landscape of northern India, fading below them into the distance. Visibility was excellent, since they were still some weeks from the monsoon season.
Rao glanced at Maloji, then at the hill fortress his Maratha soldiers were building some dozens of yards away.
"I won't deny it. We'd still be fools to accept that temptation."
He looked back to the north, pointing with his chin. "For the first few hundred miles, everything would go well. By now, between them, Damodara and Belisarius will have turned half the Ganges plain into a whirlpool of war. Easy pickings for us, on the edges. But then?"
He shook his head. "There are too many north Indians. And regardless of who wins this civil war, soon enough there will be another empire solidly in place. Then what?"
"Yes, I know. But at least we'd get some of our own back, after all the killing and plundering the bastards did in the Deccan. For that matter, they've still got a huge garrison in Amaravati."
"Not for long, they won't. Shakuntala got the word a few days ago. All of our south Indian allies have agreed to join us in our expedition to Amaravati, once we've finished this line of hill forts. The Cholas and Keralans even look to be sending large armies. Within two months-perhaps three-that garrison will be gone. One way or the other. So will all the others, in the smaller towns and cities. They'll march their bodies out of the Deccan, or we'll scatter their ashes across it."
"'Allies,'" Maloji muttered.
In truth, the other realms of south India had played no role at all in the actual fighting, up till now. As important as the alliance was for the Andhran empire for diplomatic reasons, most of Shakuntala's subjects-especially the Marathas-were contemptuous of the other Deccan powers.